


the things that keeps one awake

by iniquiticity



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Greenhouses, Complex Relationship Dynamics, Cuddling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 22:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11746800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iniquiticity/pseuds/iniquiticity
Summary: Hamilton was supposed to be home tonight, and he was not, and Washington stared at the ceiling in the dark.(A Greenhouses drabble.)





	the things that keeps one awake

**Author's Note:**

> Greenhouses drabble. I'm doing better at posting longer things at AO3 now. You don't need to read on the construction and tending of greenhouses to understand this, but that's the source material. 
> 
> this is a posted draft of some kind; your feedback and constructive thoughts are welcome!
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr at [iniquiticity](http://iniquiticity.tumblr.com), or on twitter at [@picklesnake](https://twitter.com/picklesnake).

hamilton was supposed to come home today. and he had not, and washington sighed, and settled into his nightclothes, and settled into their bed. he slept more in their bed now. it had been at first between their individual beds and their bed, and now it seemed like it was mostly their bed, even when hamilton was away. hamilton was sometimes away and washington should have not slept in their bed to feel worse about it and he did. hamilton would be arguing with someone about something instead of coming home to lay with him. it was the man’s nature, he reminded himself. he could not restrain such a man. furthermore, he did not require to be laid with. 

it was easier to sleep with hamilton. sleep did not come easy, when you had made so many decisions. when you had sent men to die. when you missed your friend. when you had won and lost and sometimes you thought perhaps the victories should be defeats and the defeats victories. some thought sleep came easy because you had a manor and servants and grounds. it was laughable. no grounds could make you forget failures. as if servants could make up for the dead soldiers you walked on. 

hamilton did not make him forget, but to have a warm body there - it was better. hamilton kissed him and told him he was fine. it was better. hamilton held him tight. strange to think that your shared suffering could ease when you knew another man who suffered. he did not deny his sufferings. hamilton had his own. it was a little effort, to make them both suffer less. 

hamilton had said he would be home today and it was well into the evening and there was not the sound of horses. it was fine. he laid in bed and stared into the darkness and thought about nothing. about his ongoing debate with madison regarding international tariffs, mostly. it was financial, but it was political, and they were both involved. hamilton would be fighting with him. strange to think this was his life now. imagine madison taking up the time he would have preferred, to have hamilton teasing him about something. those warm, narrow hands. that voice. being used on james madison. when it could be on him, in their bed. 

a sigh. he rolled over. hamilton spread himself over the bed, with the opportunity. a man who had never been permitted space suddenly had it. sometimes he clung close to washington, and washington wondered what it meant. hamilton was a strange man with a strange, tragic life. washington wondered what it meant. did hamilton think he would abandon him, if not held? certainly, hamilton had these thoughts, when he was in his dour moods. washington knew more completely than anything what it was like to have ghosts that would not be put to sleep. his spoke in his ear enough, reminded him of the long life he had lived. no one - not hamilton, not henry, not martha, not a thousand newspapers or awards - could quiet them. so he felt safe to think hamilton’s voices could not be silenced, and if he could ease them only a fraction by holding him close and telling him of his loyalty, then it would have to be enough. 

he heard a thud outside. sat up and cocked his ears. his hearing had been going, he noticed. he was an old man, after all. an old man who had heard a lot of cannons and an even more sufficient number of screams. one’s hearing was not so persistent. there were more thuds, and if he focused hard enough something that could have been a voice. Two voices. He strained. He knew them. The voices lowered and petered out; there were more steps. 

The door. 

“I hope I have not disturbed you,” his husband said, looking at him where he was sitting up. 

“I was awake.” 

“Waiting for me?” Hamilton was grinning in the low light of the candle. He put the stick down and began to undress. “You know better than to elevate me so.”

He chuckled. It was true, after all. Hamilton was terrible when he knew you approved. He knew Washington approved, and so he was terrible. “I have done terrible things knowing them,” he said. Somehow he could say such a thing to Hamilton, and it could be lighthearted. For a long time, he could not shape such words, for what they meant. Hamilton permitted him. He had struggled to understand and still failed. 

“So you have,” Hamilton agreed, and kicked off the rest of this clothes and dumped himself into his bed. He smelled of the road and horse. “Certainly some catastrophe could occur, from this.”

“Perhaps that it could, such as you leaving the candle light on the other side of the room.”

Hamilton hissed between his teeth and stared at the blankets which he was settling himself in. Then he glanced over at the candle, which he had very much left lit, near the doorway. “So it has!” he said, and wiggled back out of the bed. He brought the candle, still lit, to their bedside table. “Perhaps it is intended, for now I can take in your majestic face.”

He did not feel majestic. He felt tired. But Hamilton was studying him in his way, so perhaps it was worth something.

“It is not so majestic,” he said. Hamilton scoffed.

“The most majestic of faces,” he retorted, but he pinched the candle out nonetheless. In the dark, Hamilton pressed close to him, kissing his shoulder. “I hope you will pretend I am not dreadfully late.”

Washington ran his hands through Hamilton’s dark hair, which came free from the queue with little effort. “You are very busy; certainly schedules must occasionally be adjusted.”

“A man should not leave his husband waiting, regardless of how wrong a man’s enemies are.”

“A man should battle his enemies; his husband should be patient and understanding about it.”  
“His husband should, but is it not an unnecessary burden? Wondering when one’s husband should return? When one’s husband is always punctual?”

“One’s husband has his own faults, certainly. Marriage does not change a man in such ways.”

“One’s husband is perfect and has no faults; he should be expected to suffer one’s various failures.”

At this Washington laughed, and Hamilton frowned at him in the darkness. 

“Before you left, you were very clear about many of my faults,” he said, for they had had a fight, though in retrospect it was unclear to him what the fight had been about. He had called Hamilton ungrateful and rude, and Hamilton had called him a king of slaves. 

“I was being nonsensical then. I am being honest now.” 

Washington sighed a long sigh. He felt Hamilton’s hand on his thigh. Hamilton had a habit of dissuading him from these sorts of examinations with such touches. He reached for the hand and let it rest on his chest. 

Hamilton pouted at him in the darkness. “One punishes their late husband with such denials? Or one has not missed their husband, who has longed dearly for them?” 

“I would prefer the morning,” he answered, which was easier than all the answers he could have provided, which included things like _earlier I was considering the bones which paved my success and that makes one uninterested in such pleasure_ as well as _you touch me so we do not discuss the argument we had previously_.

Hamilton was still upon him. He wondered if Hamilton heard all his other reasons, or made up other ones in his head. Perhaps he was deciding whether to argue. Hamilton’s silence often felt such a way. 

“The morning, then,” Hamilton said, and rearranged himself next to Washington, “It seems likely that, being so tempted by such sweet fruit, I will dream of it’s succulent juices.” 

“One’s husband has never considered himself such,” he replied, hearing the trace of humor in his own voice. 

“One’s husband thinks himself less impressive than he is, so when he is told the truth he believes it a falsehood,” Hamilton retorted, and kissed his chest. “But of course it is the task of one’s husband to assure them they are in fact all of these things. And the task to lull them to sleep, when they have stayed up all night missing one. I could tell you a very boring story, only I fear you will be riveted by it.”  
“If one wishes to put his husband to sleep, he could be quiet for a moment or two.” 

Hamilton laughed. “Impossible. But one will try.”


End file.
